


King Adgar's Nightmare

by barbara_princess_of_delphi



Series: Unique and Unusual Frozen Prompts/Headcanons: The Collection (non-AU) [5]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2282907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbara_princess_of_delphi/pseuds/barbara_princess_of_delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the entire movie was just a nightmare in the dreams of Elsa's father?</p><p>Yet another twist on the "what if Elsa went back in time" series. This time, it's Elsa's father, King Adgar, who tries to change his daughters' lives for the better. But can he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	King Adgar's Nightmare

**The entire movie takes place in the dreams of Elsa’s father, shortly after 8-year-old Elsa is isolated in her own room.**

Upon waking up the next morning, Elsa’s father resolves to change the future so that his dream vision does not come true. He teaches Elsa to use her love, and within a week she is able to hide her powers and can start playing with Anna again. The young sisters are overjoyed to be together again and everything is awesome…

…until Elsa hits puberty and realizes that the only prince she wants to marry is her own sister. Naturally, Elsa’s attempt to suppress her hormonal urges comes at the expense of her ability to suppress her magic. Elsa retreats to her room, worried about having another accidental outburst, and her concerned parents are horrified to learn the reason for her loss of control. Elsa’s father is unpleasantly reminded of his dream from five years prior and his own heart breaks for both of his daughters, but this time, he has no choice but to keep them separated for their own safety. Elsa’s romantic preference is unacceptable to their kingdom, and thus must be kept secret at all costs. Therefore, Elsa must now avoid being around Anna until she can control both her magic and her feelings at the same time. The castle gates are locked and staffing reduced, and 13-year-old Elsa tells Anna to go away for the first time in their lives. 

10-year-old Anna is distraught and demands to know why Elsa refuses to be around her anymore. This turns out to be a convenient time to explain Elsa’s powers to Anna (whose memory was modified at age 5 by the trolls) and Anna grudgingly accepts this excuse for keeping the door between herself and Elsa. Elsa plays her part, not telling Anna the other (and truer) reason for her isolation…

…until a few years later, when it’s Anna’s turn to undergo the girl-to-woman transformation and develop sexual feelings. Suddenly, Anna thinks she can understand what Elsa has been feeling – she puts two and two together, correctly guessing that Elsa must feel the same way she does. Anna excitedly runs to tell her parents (and Elsa) that she’s figured out why Elsa’s powers are out of control…

…thereby making their parents’ worst fears come true. They realize both of their daughters have unhealthy feelings towards the other and these must be suppressed at any cost. Again the parents agonize over what to do. The King knows that love is the only way to thaw Elsa’s powers, but that same love will be the downfall of their royal house if word ever gets out. 

The King and Queen see only one way to protect their daughters. But they recoil in horror from the prospect of sacrificing one daughter to save the other.

Elsa’s powers make her unmarriageable until she can find love, but where can she find love when no suitable man can safely approach her?

The answer stares the King in the face, but he does his best not to think about what his redheaded daughter so excitedly confessed to him… or the crushing disappointment in her expression upon learning that marriage is only allowed for a man and a woman… ~~or her petulant wish to be a boy instead of a girl so as to get around that restriction (which forced him to uncomfortably explain the concept of incest to his naïve little girl…)~~

The kingdom must have heirs, and since Elsa is in no condition to mate with a prince (or any man, for that matter) their only hope rests upon Anna. 

The King could easily arrange a marriage for Anna, but he hesitates – knowing that such an engagement would take away the only person who could be the lover Elsa needs, therefore dooming her to permanent imprisonment.

In desperation, he briefly considers allowing his daughters to become lovers for the sake of controlling Elsa’s powers. But they would have to live forever in the shadows, fearing the discovery that would put an end to the kingdom. And it would hurt more in the end, as Anna must inevitably marry and Elsa will be even more devastated then, and her powers will again rage. Perhaps it would be best to split them now, before they have had a chance to bond any further. 

With a heavy heart, the King orders both his daughters to bury their unspeakable feelings and tells them that Anna must be betrothed to a nice prince to set things right. 13-year-old Anna screams and rages at her parents for hours when they break the news to her. But 16-year-old Elsa’s response is even more heartbreaking. Elsa is so despondent upon realizing she will never be able to leave her room again (and, more importantly, that she’s going to lose Anna forever) that she barely manages to stop the growing icicles before they stab her parents. Fearing for their safety as well as resenting the sacrifice she must make for the kingdom, Elsa never lets her parents in again, despite their tearful pleas through her door. Anna’s defiant persistence in whispering to Elsa under the door at night, when their parents are asleep, saves Elsa from suicide.

Two years later, during one of their several planned journeys to scout out potential husbands for Anna, the King and Queen die in a shipwreck, as in canon. Elsa refuses to attend the funeral and Anna, despite genuinely grieving, also finds herself guiltily suppressing her relief that her parents won’t be forcing her to stay clear of Elsa and/or marry a foreign prince anytime soon. 

With their parents no longer around to keep them apart and clamp down on their long-suppressed feelings, the two sisters quickly become more than sisters. The following three years are among the happiest of their life: the two of them alone in the castle, no husband to sneak around, no public image to maintain.

Three years later, Elsa’s coronation goes without incident, and her powers are perfectly hidden once more with love. But it’s not six months after that when the royal council starts to raise the question of marriage for their queen, who must produce an heir. (The councilors assume Elsa will take on the duty, as they are unaware of her powers.) The sisters proceed to play the dangerous game of stolen moments and hidden glances which their father had judged too risky to allow. He is no longer here to guide them, and two hormonal young women are left to make their own decisions.

Elsa and Anna spend the following three years entertaining foreign princes and pretending to be dutiful royals even while they gradually christen every room in the castle right under the royal council’s noses. Together they select a suitor to be King of Arendelle – to whom they give their kingdom, but not their hearts, which have never been their own to give. 

Five years later, the moment Elsa’s father dreaded arrives. The sisters are caught in flagrante by Elsa’s husband and barely escape with their lives, leaving behind their beloved three-year-old boy, Elsa’s son, Anna’s nephew. Even though they still have each other, the sisters are devastated as any parents would be to lose their children. Wanted dead or alive for their unspeakable royal sins, the sisters find refuge with the trolls Elsa remembered from her childhood, evading a kingdom-wide manhunt. 

But there is a happy ending to the story: Twenty years later, having watched Arendelle from afar, anxiously clinging to scraps of news about their little prince and his later half-siblings (from Elsa’s husband re-marrying), Elsa and Anna are taken by Grand Pabbie to see his latest human advice-seeker. It’s Elsa’s son, the prince of Arendelle – all grown up! After a tearful reunion, the prince agrees to visit as often as he can.

The sisters chose Elsa’s suitor well: he was a good man who refused to punish an innocent boy for his mother’s crimes. The prince goes on to become a king himself, succeeding his father (Elsa’s ex-husband). With everyone who knew his mother and aunt well enough to see through potential disguises now deceased, the new king takes the opportunity to hire two new personal servants, whom he constantly calls for at all hours of the day with the smallest and most unreasonable requests. Strangely, the new servants don’t seem to mind being apparently singled out and overworked. He also marries a pretty foreign princess whose true identity is known only to the trolls, Elsa, and Anna. The rumors about the new queen’s striking resemblance to her new husband’s recently deceased half-sister remain just that, rumors.


End file.
